Corrupt Cadillac Conservatives

The Cleveland Plain Dealer features a major expose showing exactly how today's Cadillac Conservatives in the Republican Party are living the good life, while screwing over average Americans.

Rep. Mike Oxley (R-OH) is example A. As Chairman of the Financial Services Committee, he basically oversees most major legislation that is of interest to Corporate America - things like the bankruptcy bill, which he is sheperding through Congress and which hammers America's middle class. But forgive Oxley if he is totally out of touch with the people he's screwing over - he's busy spending $25,000 for "chauffeured luxury sedans around New York," taking more than 47 "excursions across the country on private jets," spending $63,544 on "ski trips to Vail" and hosting "golf outings in Scottsdale" - all funded not out of his own pocket, but from campaign contributions given to him by the industries he oversees in Congress.

Then there is Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), who is using the money he shakes down from corporate lobbyists to finance his extravagant spending binges. He put down $53,000 for greens fees, and ran up a $47,000 bill at Sam & Harry's, a top Washington, D.C. steakhouse - again, paid for by the cash he raised from the industries he's supposed to oversee in Congress.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) is also busy. This conservative whose party rails on California/Hollywood liberals is using the cash his corporate friends give him to spend $39,000 "on events and meals at Beverly Wilshire Hotel and Wolfgang Puck's Spago Beverly Hill."

We are living in an age where Cadillac Conservatives raise huge amounts of cash from the companies they are supposed to be regulating, and then are allowed to use that money to live like royalty. It is corruption, plain and simple. Read this story in full, and you will never again wonder why the GOP Congress is so grossly out of touch with the rest of America.